1. Statement of the Technical Field
The present invention relates to a Web log and more particularly to the incorporation of a Web log in a collaborative system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A “Blog” can be defined as a regularly updated Web log. The prototypical blog can include information relating to a specific topic. For instance, in many cases a blog has been used as a daily diary regarding the personal life of the author, the political views of the author, or a social commentary reflecting the viewpoint of the author. The roots of “blogging” can be traced to the mid-1990's. Still, the identity of the first blogger remains unclear, as the art of blogging did not really take hold until the year 1999. Nevertheless, the original “weblogs” could be characterized as link-driven Web sites containing the personal commentaries of one or more authors. While initially thought of as diaries or online journals, the inviting nature of blogs have caused blogs to evolve into a source of fresh Web content for many interested Web surfers.
Today, blogging represents an emerging collaboration technology that greatly simplifies the sharing of ideas and thoughts in a communal environment. Specifically, blogging can simplify the posting of Web content by automating the publishing of Web log content. To that end, blogs provide a means for an individual or group to maintain a Web site where posting new content is accomplished via a Web browser allowing content to be aggregated easily. In many circumstances, blog posts can be complimented with commentary from the original poster as well by others who visit the blog.
Much of the explosion of web-based commentary via blogging has been fueled by the addition of “Really Simple Syndication” (RSS) publishing features in blogging applications. RSS technology allows blog site aggregators to be updated with RSS feeds from related blog sites, or other sources of information. Specifically, RSS is an XML-based format that allows the syndication of content ranging from lists of hyperlinks to blog postings. To enable the syndication of content, a Web site can publish an RSS feed, or channel. Once a feed becomes available, content browsers can regularly fetch the RSS feed to receive the most recently published content in the channel. It is to be noted that additional, alternative technologies to RSS have been developed including the Atom technology.
Blogs have proven to be useful in the corporate enterprise environment as blogs can provide a means to share information. Yet, alone blogs can be deficient in many respects which can limit the applicability and usefulness of blogs in a corporate collaborative environment. For instance, security is lacking in that a blog generally can be accessed by anyone having knowledge of the network address of the blog. Also, users cannot initiate a search of the blog within a specific collaborative context from a single point of access in order to locate content of interest. Furthermore, users of the blog remain “unaware” of blog authors of blog postings. Users yet further cannot enjoy a convenient method for referencing internal sources within a blog post. Finally, neither users nor groups have a single point to control access to the blog in relation to other collaborative elements such as discussion forums and documents.